


Amortentia

by soundofez



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Love at First Sight, Memories, Nonfiction, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-05 15:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soundofez/pseuds/soundofez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifty memories, five years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eighth Grade.

_**Eighth Grade.** The first year._

_One._ A casual glance, and her heart stops. She has no idea why— he is stunningly unattractive. She can't help but wonder— _is this what love at first sight feels like?_ It's forceful and panic inducing, and she hates it, so she curls up in her seat in front of him because she doesn't know how to handle it.

_Two._ Phantom memories, uncertain, unstable. She thinks she remembers him beside her in maths at the projector, writing his answer to the homework down on the key. There is also a moment when someone, maybe he, maybe not, puts up a marvelous last stand in a losing game one meaningless day in gym.

_Three._ Gym. The class is going through fitness tests, and she counts his sit-ups. When the coach calls for the students' numbers, she confuses his name with another girl's, starts to speak too soon, and cuts herself off, abashed. He laughs, but not unkindly, and she ducks her head, sure that she is blushing furiously.

_Four._ The coach calls him forth to demonstrate a score point for the game the class is to play. He misses multiple times, and gets teased about not making the basketball team for the year. (Later he disappears from the class, and long after that she finally realizes where he went.)

_Five._ He walks with a sort of lope that reminds her of a wild canine. It's loose and casual and toes the line between silly and cool, and it fascinates her.

_Six._ She realizes that they briefly shared a maths class, and would still be sharing it if she hadn't gone and advanced to the next level. Then from her classroom across the hall, she watches him walk into his science class after lunch. A few vague half-thoughts, and she realizes that she could be in that class if only she'd accepted the honors program.

_Seven._ Thanks to a freak mishap with her originally assigned locker, his locker is above hers. One day, it decides to vomit its contents on her, but when he apologizes she dismisses it too coldly with _It's fine._

_Eight._ She can't keep her infatuation to herself any longer, and carefully asks a close friend. It turns out they share first period. _He's nice_ , or so she is told, and she trusts her friend, and she dreams.

_Nine._ She finds his writing on the wall and is captured by the strength of its emotion. It makes her ashamed of her meager display.

_Ten._ Gym again, before he left it. They are playing a version of hockey, but get sorted to separate teams. At one point, they get to play on the field at the same time. Their hockey sticks cross: she **glares** up at him, and thinks later he may have been bewildered by the hatred in it. 


	2. Ninth Grade.

_**Ninth grade.** The foolish year._

_One._ She grins, calls him idiot affectionately, hugs him and soaks the warmth that is him hugging back, and she wakes and basks in the bittersweet glow of a dream of that could never be.

_Two._ She knows she needs to be more outgoing if she ever wants a chance of knowing him, so she practices being more open for the entire next year. On occasion she wonders if she's been too open, telling people of her affections almost indiscriminately and still managing to care.

_Three._ It is easiest to mess around during lunch. Sometimes her friend attempts to shove her into him, and succeeds once, at which point she offers only a not-quite-sincere apology before dashing off. More often she will walk from the lunch line singing a duet, usually the finale of Les Misérables. At some point, they take turns jabbing at his back. Once the year is gone, she finds it difficult not to despise herself for these lunchtime travesties.

_Four._ Her friend helps her find the address to his house in some city records online. She never learns whether or not it is actually his house, but she assumes as much regardless.

_Five._ She hates to admit it, but her libido is nowhere near as nonexistent as she wishes it were. Still, she doesn't understand how anyone can be disrespectful enough to wank with a living, breathing person in mind. It's disturbing and intrusive, and for her it crosses a line. (Curiously, she's never really desired him sexually, and she wonders if that makes her obsession more acceptable.)

_Six._ Using one of the school system's computer exam programs, she finds his school ID number and memorizes it.

_Seven._ She writes him a letter and slots it into his locker like a complete _dork_. Later she wants to slap herself in embarrassment, but what is done is done.

_Eight._ He makes her realize exactly how hot suits are when he shows up during lunch one day dressed impeccably in a black tux. (She learns later it was for basketball.)

_Nine._ His email address— _entirely a side perk to something unrelated, to be clear!_ — is whimsical, and she laughs at the evidence of his quirkiness.

_Ten._ His Facebook wall is open to public, and she checks it periodically because she can't help herself.


	3. Tenth Grade.

_**Tenth grade.** The accepting year._

_One_. She stops checking his Facebook page for the duration of the summer because she knows she has to wean herself off him. She comes back from China, opens his page, and finds it blank.

_Two_. She roams the halls, hears a voice, gloriously beautiful, foreign, _exotic_ , and searches for it. She finds him around a corner, the source of the voice, and finds herself entranced. When she opens her eyes to a ceiling, the sound is still echoing in her ears, enochian, ethereal.

_Three_. She finds that his school password is the same as his email address and doesn't know whether to laugh or to facepalm. She never does anything drastic, though; she only memorizes his schedule, only creates a file in notepad and advises him to get a new password. (She also asks him to respond, but he never does.)

_Four_. It's disturbing how dull knowing his schedule at the beginning of the year makes things for her.

_Five_. Her obsession is unreasonably strong, and she wonders bitterly if she can ever have a relationship with anyone but him. She doesn't think she could date when she knows that she would just feel guilty about loving someone else so desperately.

_Six_. He isn't in basketball anymore, and that disappoints her. To her it means it wasn't a passion for him, and that she never will see him play. (It's a very long time later before she realizes that maybe it was his parents putting their foot down and not him quitting.)

_Seven_. He shares a class with her friend, who insists that he's boring. She takes this news skeptically (she's boring in class, too), but doesn't bother arguing the point.

_Eight_. Waiting for the last of the time in their testing room to tick out after lunch, she has difficulties opening a bottle of Deja Blue. She almost hands it to him, but instead his cousin manages to open it first.

_Nine_. During a club meeting, she decides _to heck with it_ , and offers him (and another boy she only vaguely knows to be less strange) a stick of pocky.

_Ten_. The boy is cute, but the idea that he could confess to her so easily rankles her. Love at first sight she has no reason to deny, as she has also fallen victim to it; but such straightforwardness is almost unforgivable after the **brainstrain** she's been giving herself over the same dilemma, so she laughs with her friend and lets him think that she is gay.


	4. Eleventh Grade.

_**Eleventh grade.** The lonely year. _

_One_. His password has changed. She feels a little lost now that she can't simply look up his schedule, but the logic puzzle that is piecing together sightings and direction and a new building entirely is refreshing, even if she never does figure out his whole schedule.

 _Two_. She hasn't just been getting accustomed to his odd features— he's been growing into them, learning to present himself, and she feels vaguely smug that she apparently has a very good radar for ugly ducklings before they bloom.

 _Three_. She absentmindedly starts to open her locker, more preoccupied with talking with her friend and slightly derailed by his proximity as he rummages around in his own locker nearby. It's only after he's gone that she realizes she's been trying to open the wrong locker. (Later, when she gets to her locker before he does, she gets to watch as he does a double-take, confused at the change in distance.)

 _Four_. Her friend shares a class with him, and informs her that he is dating someone. She considers this information and is pleased to find that, even if she is not exactly happy with this development, she isn't crushed or burning with jealousy either.

 _Five_. She doesn't know why she sneaks pictures of him. It's not like she can look at them without feeling ashamed, anyway.

 _Six_. She tells a boy who is a friend, and he is the first of the opposite gender to know. Her friend promptly Facebook-friends him, and then sends her the most ridiculous picture he can find in his albums.

 _Seven_. The news that her friend shared an SAT testing room with him makes her want to bash her head into a wall.

 _Eight_. If it weren't for the tornado that trapped her in psychology, she may never have discovered the friend who shared fourth period with him. (They went to driving school together. _He's nice_ , she is told. _I've heard_ , she replies.)

 _Nine_. He has computer science sixth period, and she is infuriated to discover that she could very well have been in that class if it weren't for her cripplingly unhelpful counselor.

 _Ten_. Eventually she realizes that she is an absolute cuddle-whore, which comes as a shock to her, especially considering how anti-touch she was in freshman year. She wishes she could express it through the correct channel, but she is stuck without a boyfriend.


	5. Twelfth Grade.

_**Twelfth grade.** The last year._

_One_. She decides that if she does have a class with him, she'll confess at the end of the year. (She doesn't have a class with him.)

_Two_. She attends computer club and is entirely bewildered to find him there. She forces herself to move and sit beside someone she actually knows.

_Three_. She honestly doesn't give a damn who knows that she likes him anymore, and hands it out almost as free information.

_Four_. Glancing over the roster of hopeful group members to her club, most of them likely a residue from the year before, she grinds to a halt at his name and mentally bashes her face into a wall. Later she has to force herself to contact the people on that list, him included. (None of them reply, though, which makes her feel at once better and worse.)

_Five_. Her brother can cook, his male friends can cook, and the boys in her architecture class can cook. She must have subconsciously determined that all members of the male species can cook, because her next dream features him cooking avocados.

_Six_. She is in the chemistry room whiling away her lunchtime when he walks in, and she is struck by a very strong urge to melt into her seat and pretend that she doesn't exist, but she ignores it and carries on with her friends and manages to act completely normal and is proud of herself for it.

_Seven_. _[Sometimes, she wonders](https://soundofez.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/sometimes-she-wonders/)_ , and she writes it to see how her feelings have changed as part of an effort to understand herself. In the end, though, she sets the hypothetical aside in disgust and gives it up as hopeless.

_Eight_. She walks past him multiple times as she cruises about the wing of the school with her friend during their off-period. She's still flustered.

_Nine_. Valentine's Day, her off period, and he used to have it off too but now she spends it in his class _because she has other friends to talk to_ , not because he's there. This time, though, she admits that it is for him, because between the end of the lesson and the dismissal bell, she asks him, "What would you do if I said I loved you?" She always was a romantic, even if she hates to admit it. (His response, by the way, is to smile at her, very boyishly, which throws her off entirely. **It isn't even a reply.** She has actually no clue what to make of him at all.)

_Ten_. Calculus again. She takes a break from her usual two friends so that she can stop third-wheeling on their cuddle time. She turns to him instead, and finds him engrossed in a game she happens to have as well. He's farther along than she is, and she's been stuck on hers for a while, so she does the logical thing and asks him for help.


End file.
